The Afghan War

From VOA and Agencies

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta is in Afghanistan to try to calm the fury after a U.S. soldier allegedly shot 16 civilians to death this week, including nine children.

Panetta told reporters Tuesday that "war is hell" and that these kind of terrible events happen in every war. He said the killings probably will not be the last, but that the military will do everything possible to make sure they do not happen again.

Also on Wednesday, a motorcycle bomb has one Afghan security officer and wounded at least two other people in the city of Kandahar, near the village where a U.S. soldier allegedly murdered 16 civilians this week, including nine children.

No one has claimed responsibility for the Wednesday blast, but the Taliban has vowed to avenge the killings.

In Washington Tuesday, President Barack Obama said the United States takes the incident as seriously as if it were its our own citizens who were murdered. He said the killing of innocent civilians "is outrageous and unacceptable" and does not represent what the United States is. He said he has extraordinary confidence in U.S. military leaders and troops. He reasserted that despite the public outrage, there will be no hasty U.S. retreat from Afghanistan. The Taliban has threatened to behead Americans because of the murders. Taliban militants opened fire on a memorial servicefor the 16 villagers Tuesday in Kandahar, killing an Afghan soldier and wounding a policeman.

Hundreds of university students protested Tuesday in Jalalabad in the first significant public demonstration against the killings. Many of the marchers chanted "Death to America" and "Death to Obama." Read more ..

Uganda on Edge

VOA

The release this month by a U.S. non-profit organization of an Internet video denouncing a Ugandan rebel leader is creating a worldwide conversation and shaking up the world of advocacy. Like many other human rights campaigns, the video released by the organization Invisible Children got help from celebrities. One of them was Angelina Jolie. The Hollywood film actress spoke out against the elusive Lord’s Resistance Army leader Joseph Kony at a recent appearance. “He is an extraordinarily horrible human being," she said. "His time has come, and it is lovely to see that young people are raising up as well.”

A collective of some of the biggest U.S. media and entertainment personalities used social media to promote the 29-minute video when it was released March 5. So did high school and college students across the United States and elsewhere. The Kony video has become the fastest growing ever on the Internet in terms of views. On Tuesday, it prompted U.S. lawmakers to introduce a resolution calling for increased efforts to boost the number of forces deployed to protect civilians and pursue LRA commanders hiding in Central Africa. Read more ..

The 2012 Vote

The Hill

Liberal interest groups, watchdogs and unions on Monday threatened to boycott, protest and publicly embarrass corporations that spend money trying to sway the outcome of the November election.

Gathered Monday at the Washington headquarters of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the groups issued a call to arms for the 2012 campaign, vowing to aggressively challenge companies that contribute to super-PACs and 501(c) nonprofit groups.

“If you secretly contribute and scheme to buy our elections, we’re going to come knocking on your door,” said Aaron Black of the Occupy Wall Street movement. “And it’s not just going to be a couple of us. It’s going to be thousands of us. Everywhere you turn your head.”

Representatives of the coalition, which includes Common Cause, Health Care for America Now, Public Citizen and Occupy, among others, said they’d push for legislation and regulations that would require companies to disclose all of their political spending. “We’re saying to corporate America that enough is enough. We’re not going to stand for our democratic system being overwhelmed by money,” said Bill de Blasio, the New York City public advocate. Read more ..

Afghanistan on Edge

Jewish Policy Center

U.S. authorities announced earlier this month that the U.S. Military Coalition and Drug Enforcement Administration will be investigating claims that Afghan Air Force (AAF) officials are transporting narcotics and illegal weapons via aircraft through the country. Lieutenant General Daniel Bolger, the commander of NATO’s Training Mission-Afghanistan, which invested $1.9 billion in AAF over 2011 and 2012, explains that allegations indicate “that [AAF officials] were transporting drugs on aircraft and transported weapons not owned by the government of Afghanistan for the use of private groups.” AAF Major General Abdul Wahab Wardak has denied the accusations. Read more ..

Edge of The Afghan War

The Hill

A U.S. soldier was detained in Afghanistan under suspicion of opening fire on Afghan civilians on March 11. "A United States service member was detained today in connection to an incident that resulted in Afghan casualties in Kandahar province," said a statement from the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force.

"This is a deeply regrettable incident and we extend our thoughts and concerns to the families involved," the statement added. Officials said on March 11 that the U.S. was in "cooperation" with Afghan authorities over the shooting and would "investigate the incident and release additional information as appropriate." U.S. authorities did not release casualty figures and directed such inquiries to the Afghan Interior ministry. However, Reuters reported Kandahar Gov. Tooryalai Wisa saying that initial reports suggested as many as 16 civilians may have been killed. Wisa told reporters a service member had left his base early on Sunday morning and opened fire on civilians. Read more ..

The Toxic Edge

iWatch

Again drawn by a leak of toxic hydrofluoric acid, federal investigators are back at a Texas oil refinery they examined three years ago.

Some nearby residents were told to shelter in place after the release, said Daniel Horowitz, managing director of the U.S. Chemical Safety Board, which has sent a team of investigators to the Citgo refinery in Corpus Christi. It’s not yet clear how much of the acid, known as HF, got out.

“Any incident involving the release of HF is something we take very seriously,” Horowitz said.

An investigation last year found that 50 refineries use the acid despite the availability of safer alternatives. At least 16 million Americans live in the path of a toxic cloud in the event of an accident. Read more ..

Edge of Space

From VOA and Agencies

A massive solar storm initially expected to create havoc for everything from mobile phones to airline flights has reached Earth with little effect, but experts say that could still change.

The storm appeared to spare satellite and power systems as it shook the Earth’s magnetic field Thursday, with no reports of GPS or power disruptions. A scientist with the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Joseph Kunches, said the storm struck in a direction that causes the fewest problems—but that orientation could change as the storm continues.

The storm started with a pair of solar flares Tuesday, and continued with two coronal mass ejections (CMEs). A large CME can contain a billion tons of matter that can be accelerated to several million miles per hour in a spectacular explosion. Solar material streams out through the interplanetary medium. CMEs are sometimes associated with flares but can occur independently. Read more ..

The Iranian Threat

STRATFOR

An Iranian media report of a pipeline explosion in Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province on March 1 served as a reminder of the impact that instability in Iran’s neighborhood can have on world oil markets. By extension, the event showed the impact Iranian propaganda efforts can have in deterring a military attack.

The claim that a fire had broken out near a pipeline between Awamiya and Shabwa appears to have emanated from an Eastern Province-based Saudi Shiite Facebook group. The group posted pictures purportedly portraying a blaze near a pipeline. The report was picked up by Iranian media outlet PressTV more than four hours later and spread from there. There was no independent confirmation of a purported attack, and all indications so far point to this being another propaganda move by Iran to shake the markets. Read more ..

The Edge of Astronomy

EurekAlert

Los Alamos National Laboratory scientists and an international research team have announced discovery of molecular oxygen ions (O2+) in the upper-most atmosphere of Dione, one of the 62 known moons orbiting the ringed planet. The research appeared recently in Geophysical Research Letters and was made possible via instruments aboard NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, which was launched in 1997.

Dione, discovered in 1684 by astronomer Giovanni Cassini (after whom the spacecraft was named), orbits Saturn at roughly the same distance as our own moon orbits Earth. The tiny moon is a mere 700 miles wide and appears to be a thick, pockmarked layer of water ice surrounding a smaller rock core. As it orbits Saturn every 2.7 days, Dione is bombarded by charged particles (ions) emanating from Saturn’s very strong magnetosphere. These ions slam into the surface of Dione, displacing molecular oxygen ions into Dione’s thin atmosphere through a process called sputtering. Read more ..

Free Beacon

“My supreme responsibility as prime minister of Israel is to ensure that Israel remains the master of its fate,” Netanyahu told Obama. In a sit-down on March 5 with the president in the Oval Office, Netanyahu pushed back against the administration’s repeated attempts to dissuade Israel from attacking Iran.

“Israel must reserve the right to defend itself and after all, that’s the very purpose of the Jewish state to, restore to the Jewish people control of our destiny,” said Netanyahu, who is meeting with the president in advance of his speech later today before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s annual policy conference. Israel reserves the right to strike Iran if need be, Netanyahu said. Read more ..

Middle East on Edge

The Hill

President Obama reaffirmed his staunch commitment to Israel on March 4, making clear in no uncertain terms that “I have Israel’s back.” But, at the same time, he urged Israel and its supporters to allow time for diplomacy and “crippling” sanctions on Iran to take hold to halt Tehran’s nuclear program.

Addressing the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the influential pro-Israel lobby group, Obama tried to reassure the crowd of 13,000 people, who initially greeted him with a lukewarm response, by saying that if Iran fails to meet its obligations and the problem remains, “we must accomplish our objective.”

“Iran’s leaders should know that I do not have a policy of containment, I have a policy to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon,” Obama said, drawing hearty applause from the crowd. “And as I’ve made clear time and again during the course of my presidency, I will not hesitate to use force when it is necessary to defend the United States and its interests.” During his address, which comes one day before he sits down with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Obama sought time and again to reassure Israel and its supporters that he will do whatever it takes to help defend the country. Read more ..

China on Edge

VOA

China is planning a double-digit rise in military spending this year, an increase authorities say is in line with the country's economic development and defense needs. Li Zhaoxing, the spokesman for the National People's Congress, announced on Sunday the overall figure for China's 2012 military spending. Li says the defense budget will be about $110 billion (670.2 billion RMB), which represents an 11.2 percent increase over what was spent last year. This compares to a 12.7 percent increase in military spending last year and is in line with a nearly unbroken string of double-digit increases over the past two decades. The spokesman says China has the world's largest population, a big territory and a long coastline, but only spends 1.28 percent of its gross domestic product on defense spending. By comparison, he points to other developed countries like the United States and Britain, which spend more than 2 percent of their national budgets on defense. Li says China is committed to a path of peaceful development and pursues a defense policy that is defensive in nature. Read more ..

The Arab Fall

VOA News

U.S. pro-democracy activists charged with encouraging unrest in Egypt have left Cairo after courts there lifted a travel ban against them. The standoff threatened more than $1 billion in U.S. financial support for Egypt.

State Department Spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said Thursday that the the Americans were allowed to leave Egypt after their non-governmental organizations agreed to post their bail.

“We are very pleased that the Egyptian courts have now lifted the travel ban on our NGO employees,” said Nuland. “The U.S. government has provided a plane to facilitate their departure. And they have left the country. They are currently en route home.” Read more ..

Senegal on Edge

Senegal's President Abdoulaye Wade is expected to face a tough run-off vote against former prime minister Macky Sall, who is working to round up opposition support.

A group of Senegalese opposition leaders began talks on February 29 in the capital, Dakar, to discuss forming an alliance aimed at defeating the 85-year-old incumbent.

Wade has admitted he fell short of the 50 percent of the votes needed in the February 26 poll to avoid a runoff. Provisional results show he has more than 30 percent of the vote, and Sall is trailing him by roughly seven points. Final results are expected on on March 2 and a run-off election is scheduled for March 18. Cheikh Tidiane Gadio, one of eleven other presidential candidates, said opposition leaders want to unite with civil society groups to oust Wade. "Wednesday night, we will discuss to see if Macky Sall is ready to agree on what I call a citizen republican front, a national front, to get rid of Wade and his regime." Read more ..

The Battle for Syria

RFE/RL

A Syrian activist group has said that 144 people were killed across the country, scores of them in the embattled opposition stronghold of Homs by security forces as they tried to flee. The Local Coordination Committees activist group did not say whether all 144 died on February 27 or were killed over the past few days. Many of the casualties were believed to be from the rebel-controlled Baba Amr neighborhood of Homs, which the Syrian Arab Red Crescent entered late on February 27 after days of trying to reach the area. Three people were evacuated. Foreign reporters trapped in the area were not evacuated and the bodies of two journalists killed there had not been recovered.

Homs has emerged as the center of the 11-month-old uprising seeking to oust authoritarian President Bashar al-Assad and has borne the brunt of his regime's bloody crackdown on dissent. Parts of the city have been surrounded for weeks, making it impossible for rescue workers to reach the wounded and for families to bring their dead and injured to the hospital. Reports by numerous activists that more than 60 bodies were brought to the hospital, all of whom appeared to have died in one incident, reflect the spreading carnage. Read more ..

Edge on Iran

The U.S. fast food chain Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) has denied reports it has opened a branch in Iran. In a statement issued following an inquiry by the Persian Service of the BBC, KFC says that it will take legal action against individuals or companies that take advantage of the brand in Iran. The statement also says that that the company has no plans to open a restaurant in Iran.

Last week, Iranian news websites reported that the first Iranian franchise of KFC had been opened in Karaj and more outlets were soon to be opened in Tehran and other major cities. The state-operated Fars news agency, which broke the story, later removed the news item claiming, "The first branch of KFC opened in Iran with the goal of creating 20, 000 jobs." Read more ..

The Battle for Syria

VOA

The international Red Cross tried in vain Saturday to get into the besieged Syrian city of Homs, to evacuate wounded ( from the Baba Amro district). Red Cross officials say they hope to resume negotiations with Syrian authorities and opposition groups in Homs on Sunday, but that Saturday's talks produced no results. The International Committee of the Red Cross says it is in negotiations with Syrian authorities and the opposition at both the local and central level to organize a second medical evacuation. The Red Cross evacuated seven sick or wounded people from the besieged Baba Amro district of Homs on Friday. The agency confirms two wounded French journalists were not among the group transferred. The Red Cross also relocated 20 women and children to a safer area.

ICRC Spokeswoman, Carla Haddad-Mardini says Red Cross delegates are ready to resume the life-saving operations in an instant. “We need to be prepared and our teams on the spot are ready to enter anytime. But, an evacuation operation does take time because you need to organize things on the spot. But , the convoys are ready. Everything is ready. It is just we need to clear this with all sides before entering because the security conditions are difficult on the spot,” she said. Haddad-Mardini says the Red Cross needs to have approval from all sides concerned before it can begin transferring the wounded to the nearest hospital. She says negotiations to this effect are ongoing and everyone is hoping the operation will be renewed. Read more ..

The Battle for Syria

VOA

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton lashed out at Russia and China over their Syria policy Friday, at the conclusion of a meeting in Tunis designed to increase pressure on the Syrian regime and its supporters to allow democratic change. Secretary Clinton said Syrian President Bashar al-Assad will have even more blood on his hands if he does not stop the violence and allow humanitarian aid to reach civilian areas his troops have been shelling for weeks. But she reserved some of her harshest words for Assad's main international supporters, Russia and China, who vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution that would have condemned him. “They are setting themselves against the aspirations not only of the Syrian people, but of the entire Arab Spring, the Arab awakening. It's quite distressing to see two permanent members of the Security Council using their veto when people are being murdered," said Clinton. "It is just despicable. And I ask, 'Whose side are they on?' They are clearly not on the side of the Syrian people.”

Clinton said the Russian, Chinese and Syrian positions are contrary to history and are not sustainable. She also said several times that there are signs that the network of domestic support around Assad is cracking, and she called on members of his security services, in particular, to break with the regime. “Their continuing to kill their brothers and sisters is a stain on their honor. Their refusal to continue this slaughter will make them heroes in the eyes of not only Syrians, but people of conscience everywhere,” said Clinton. The secretary spoke after a long afternoon of meetings at the conference of the 70 countries and organizations that call themselves the Friends of the Syrian People. The meeting agreed to intensify efforts to deliver humanitarian aid to besieged Syrian towns, but only if the Syrian government provides safe passage. The meeting did not discuss sending foreign troops, and there was no agreement on a request for arms from the main Syrian opposition group at the meeting, the Syrian National Council. Read more ..

North Korea on Edge

VOA

North Korea has threatened to launch a “sacred war” if South Korea and the United States go ahead with planned annual military exercises. The North's National Defense Commission called the maneuvers “an outright challenge to the peace and security of the Korean peninsula and an explicit act of destruction.” The statement also hinted at possible nuclear retaliation, saying nuclear weapons are not the monopoly of the U.S. and that Pyongyang has “war means more powerful than the U.S. nukes.”

The two allies plan to jointly hold military drills called “Key Resolve” from February 27 to March 9, and “Foal Eagle” from March 1 to April 30. Each exercise will mobilize thousands of U.S. and South Korean troops to practice tactics that would be used to protect the South from invasion. South Korea and the U.S. regularly hold military exercises to bolster their readiness against a possible North Korean invasion. Still, the North routinely denounces military drills in the South as rehearsals for invasion. Read more ..

The Digital Edge

VOA

A coalition of Internet companies, including U.S.-based Google, has agreed to support a "do-not-track" button being installed in Web browsers to help protect the privacy of computer users around the world. For more than a year, the Internet browser companies had resisted embedding the button. But slowly, various browsing companies have adopted the "do-not-track" feature, including Mozilla with its Firefox browser, Microsoft with Internet Explorer and Apple with its Mountain Lion operating system. On Thursday, Google, the world's most popular search engine, said it, too, would join a broad coalition of 400 technology, advertising and media companies to support the anti-tracking effort. Google's announcement came hours before President Barack Obama called on Congress to pass legislation defining a "privacy bill of rights" for Internet users.

Obama said the privacy standards are necessary because he said "consumer trust is essential for the continued growth of the digital economy." The U.S.-based Internet industry, fueled annually by nearly $40 billion in online advertising, has been caught in several privacy disputes as advanced technology has been created that can track users' viewing habits. Most disputes have involved claims that the browser companies have deceptively collected information about which Internet sites people have visited and then used it to customize advertising sent to users or for other commercial purposes. Read more ..

The 2012 Vote

iWatch News

Deval Patrick

Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick has called the Supreme Court decision that created super PACs “wrong” and in need of fixing, but that didn't stop him from sending money to one of these new groups. On Jan. 25, just days after the two-year anniversary of the controversial Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision, Patrick donated $500 to the Democratic Governors Association's super PAC, “DGA Action,” records show. The Citizens United ruling held that corporations and unions can spend their treasury funds on political advertisements expressly advocating for or against federal candidates. Super PACs can accept unlimited contributions and spend the money on ads - so long as they act independently of candidates and their campaigns.

Last year, several Massachusetts lawmakers introduced a resolution that says the Citizens United ruling “presents a serious and direct threat to our democracy” and calls on Congress to “pass and send to the states for ratification a constitutional amendment to restore the First Amendment and fair elections to the people.” When Patrick was recently asked by the media whether he would support the resolution, he replied, “Well, if you’re asking me do I think the Citizens United decision was wrong and needs to be fixed, the answer to that is, yes.” Alex Goldstein, executive director of Patrick’s state political committee and federal political action committee, explained that Patrick continues to be concerned about the influence of money in politics, especially “the role of unidentified corporate money.” Read more ..

Oil Addiction

VOA

Nancy Pelosi

Oil speculators, not a lack of domestic drilling, are to blame for the nation's rising gas prices, the top House Democrat argued Wednesday. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said unscrupulous Wall Street investors have artificially inflated prices at the pump, which are climbing toward $4 per gallon. The California Democrat called on Congress to take "strong action" to rein in the allegedly excessive speculation, and accused Republicans of protecting Wall Street profits at the expense of consumers. "Wall Street profiteering, not oil shortages, is the cause of the price spike," Pelosi said in a statement. "Unfortunately, Republicans have chosen to protect the interests of Wall Street speculators and oil companies instead of the interests of working Americans by obstructing the agencies with the responsibility of enforcing consumer protection laws."

The comments — arriving a day before President Obama is scheduled to address the issue of rising gas prices in Miami — represent just the latest shot in the perennial debate over the cause of price fluctuations in the oil and gasoline markets. Regular gasoline prices are averaging $3.58 per gallon and have risen almost 20 cents in the last month, according to AAA. While many Republicans push more domestic drilling, Pelosi and other Democrats have long argued that speculative Wall Street trading in energy markets has pushed oil and gasoline prices far above what supply-and-demand fundamentals should dictate. The 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform law included a suite of provisions to expand federal oversight of the trading, including new “position limits” for traders that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) finalized late last year.

But Drew Hammill, a spokesman for Pelosi, said Republicans have blocked the funding needed for adequate CFTC oversight, noting that the current-year funding of $205 million is not enough to meet the agency’s increased responsibilities. President Obama’s recent fiscal year 2013 budget plan seeks $308 million for the agency. "While the Republicans have introduced, but not been able to enact, bills that would overturn or delay Dodd-Frank, strangling oversight is their new method to protect Wall Street speculators,” Hammill said in an email. Republican leaders have rejected that argument, saying the Democrats' resistance to wholesale energy exploration is driving up the price of fuel. Read more ..

The Battle for Syria

VOA

Marie Colvin - Sunday Times Journalist

Shelling in the besieged Syrian city of Homs has killed two Western journalists, while rights activists and Damascus ally Russia are supporting calls for humanitarian assistance. Marie Colvin, an American working for Britain's Sunday Times newspaper, and French photographer Remi Ochlik died Wednesday in shelling that activists say killed at least 13 other people and wounded several more journalists. French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe expressed condolences to the journalists' families, calling the deaths "murder." He said the situation in Syria is worsening, and that he hopes an international meeting later this week will be a step towards a peaceful resolution of the crisis. "It's another demonstration of the degradation of the situation in Syria and of a repression that is more and more intolerable. I hope that Friday at the 'Friends of Syria' meeting in Tunis, we will be able to move towards a peaceful solution of the situation," Juppe stated.

Friends of Syria contact group - made up of Western and Arab nations openly seeking Assad's downfall - is planning to use Friday's meeting in Tunisia to increase pressure on the Syrian government to halt the bloodshed. Russia and China back Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's reform program, which the Syrian opposition has soundly rejected. Russia's Foreign Ministry voiced its support Wednesday for a plan to implement a daily two-hour cease-fire in Syria in order to allow for urgently needed humanitarian aid. The International Committee of the Red Cross proposed the cease-fire Tuesday, calling on Syria to immediately put it into place. ICRC President Jakob Kellenberger said that in Homs and elsewhere, entire families have been isolated for days, unable to secure food, water or medical care. Read more ..

The 2012 Vote

iWatch

Mitt Romney

The super PAC that has played a pivotal role in keeping Mitt Romney's presidential campaign going raised an impressive $6.6 million in January, bumping its total haul to $36.8 million since its founding last year. Restore our Future" has raised six- and seven-figure donations from a relatively small number of wealthy donors, including a large contingent of hedge fund managers and executives from private equity companies such as Bain Capital, Romney's former employer. There were no seven-figure donations in January, but 25 people gave $100,000 or more, according to a Federal Election Commission disclosure filing released Monday. Three wealthy donors gave $500,000 in January: Joseph Craft, president and CEO of Alliance Coal; Bruce Kovner of Caxton Alternative Management LP; And David Lisonbee, CEO of 4Life Research LLC.

Caxton is a multibilion-dollar hedge fund founded by Kovner; 4Life Research is a Sandy, Utah-based company that sells immune system support and anti-aging supplements among other products. Among other top donors in January, renowned hoteliers J.W. and Richard Marriott, who are long-time supporters of Romney. Combined, the two gave $500,000 to go with $500,000 they gave in 2011, bringing their total contributions to the super PAC to $1 million. Retired hedge fund manager Julian Robertson of Tiger Management LLC gave $250,000 to go with the $1 million he gave last year, making him the PAC's top donor. Read more ..

Europe on Edge

RFE/RL

The nomination of 72-year-old former East German anticommunist activist Joachim Gauck to be the next president of Germany came as a surprise -- not least to Gauck himself. "I cannot give you a keynote address now in the confusion of my feelings. That is impossible. I'm just off the plane and was in a taxi when the chancellor got a hold of me. I'm not even showered," Gauck said. "It doesn't matter that you see that I am overwhelmed and a little bit confused." But the consensus is that the longtime human rights activist -- who has been called Germany's Nelson Mandela for his role in bringing down the communist regime in East Germany and exposing the activities of the former East Germany secret police, the Stasi -- brings a much-needed moral authority to an office that has been tarnished by the resignation last week of Christian Wulff under a cloud of corruption allegations.

The popular Gauck is an elder statesman in Germany who is not affiliated with any political party and is untouched by political scandals. He was given an additional boost by the fact that the governing coalition headed by Chancellor Angela Merkel came together and endorsed him as a unity candidate. The German parliament must vote on the nomination before March 18, but Gauck already has the support of all represented parties except for Die Linke, the successor party to the former East German Communists. Born in 1940 in the northern city of Rostok, Gauck grew up in East Germany (GDR) and was 11 years old when his father was arrested by the communist authorities on vague charges of ties with the West and sent to a Siberian labor camp. Gauck was later denied the opportunity to study journalism because he refused to join communist youth organizations. Instead, he became a Lutheran pastor and, as his Stasi file noted, "an incorrigible anticommunist." He was a leader among the Christian pastors who demonstrated relentlessly and hastened the end of the communist regime. Read more ..

The Edge of Space

VOA

GJ1214b is a super-Earth orbiting a red dwarf star 40 light-years from Earth. New observations from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope show that it is a waterworld enshrouded by a thick, steamy atmosphere. Astronomers have discovered a new type of ocean-covered alien planet that is the only one of its kind ever found inside or outside our solar system. Researchers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in the northeastern state of Massachusetts describe the planet, called GJ-1214b, as a waterworld surrounded by a thick, steamy atmosphere. They say the exoplanet is nearly three times the diameter of the Earth, and weighs nearly seven times as much. Read more ..

Iran's Nukes

VOA

The American aircraft carrier, U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln, has just finished a mission in the Persian Gulf and sailed through the Strait of Hormuz, not far from the Iranian coast. The transit took place amid rising tension over Iran's nuclear program, and Tehran's threats to close the strait’s vital shippinganes. Ready and vigilant, the battle group steams through the waterway where a fifth of the world’s oil passes. Tehran has threatened to block the strait, and warned U.S. ships not to come. For Navy pilot Mitch Cole, one of the crew aboard the carrier, the day begins like any other. “It is not much different than it would be at home. I wake up in the morning, take a shower. Take care of personal things, grab some breakfast," he explains. "And usually at the end of the day we just like to relax like we would at home. We hang out with our friends. Maybe watch a movie or two, play some video games. It's not too much different than at home.”

U.S. commanders say this is not a show of force, but a routine transit - in plain sight of Iran and the occasional Iranian patrol boat that comes within view. Iran's military hardware is largely aging and no match for the United States, but commanders say even the Lincoln is not bullet proof, so its crew stays ready. Armed U.S. helicopters keep watch throughout the transit Read more ..

After the Holocaust

Cutting Edge News Senior Correspondent

Bestselling author Edwin Black has announced that a provocative, new edition of IBM and the Holocaust will be released in the coming days, on the anniversary of the book's original publication in 2001. Buy it here.

The new “Expanded Edition” will include some 32 pages of never-before-published internal IBM correspondence, State and Justice Department memos as well as concentration camp documents that will graphically chronicle exactly what IBM did and what they knew during the twelve-year Hitler regime. IBM has never denied any of the information in the book, and for years has claimed that it has no information about its Hitler-era activities involving the Third Reich.

The new Expanded Edition was necessitated after 1.2 million copies of IBM and the Holocaust sold worldwide and the book became completely out of print at the end of 2011.

The new edition is scheduled to be released on February 26, 2012, 3 PM during a special Live Global Streaming Event to be held at Yeshiva University’s Furst Hall in New York City. The event is sponsored by the American Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists, co-sponsored by Yeshiva University’s Office of Pre-Law Advisement, Jacob Hecht Pre-Law Society, Beren and Wilf campuses, in partnership with StandWithUs, and in association with NAHOS--National Association of Jewish Child Holocaust Survivors, Generations of the Shoah International, Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, the State of California Center for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, Human Rights and Tolerance, The Auto Channel, History Network News, Spero Forum, the Jewish Virtual Library, together with other groups. Read more ..

Europe on Edge

VOA

Eurozone finance ministers have approved a fresh $171-billion (130 billion euros) bailout for Greece, after more than 13 hours of tense negotiations in Brussels. The bailout will reduce Greece's government debt from around 160 percent of the country's gross domestic product to just over 120 percent by 2020 - the maximum level considered sustainable by the International Monetary Fund. The deal was reached early Tuesday after private holders of Greek debt agreed to take on a bigger-than-expected 53.5-percent face value loss on their bonds. They had previously offered a 50-percent writedown. Around $130 billion (100 billion euros) will now be written off as part of the debt exchange.

The euro made substantial gains Tuesday on news of the deal, which should help Greece avoid a catastrophic debt default when its government bonds come due next month. Eurozone chief Jean-Claude Juncker says the bailout will preserve the financial stability of both Greece and the eurozone. But he warned Athens must meet a series of conditions to secure the full amount of the emergency loan, which is Greece's second in as many years. Juncker said, "The eurogroup is fully aware of the significant efforts already made by the Greek citizens, but also underlines that further major and joint efforts by all parts of the Greek society are needed to return the economy to a sustainable growth path." Read more ..

Biophysics on Edge

Cutting Edge Correspondent

Russian scientists have successfully regenerated a flower, the seeds of which were hidden away by squirrels 30,000 years ago. The move, reminiscent of scenes from the movie “Jurassic Park,” is already creating speculation that the resurrection of prehistoric animals could now be a possibility. Japanese scientists are scouring the area for ancient mammoth remains in a bid to make this a reality. Scientists involved in the project say that the plant looks not unlike its modern counterpart, which can be found growing on the banks of the Kolyma River in northeast Siberia. The site is popular with scientists searching for mammoth bones.

The plant, Silene Stenophylla, of the campion family, was grown by The Institute of Cell Biophysics, who claim that this is the oldest plant to have been revived, smashing the previous record held by date palm seeds that were 2,000 years old. Read more ..

The 2012 Vote

The Hill

Corporate tax reform is creeping back into the picture, although experts predict the election will chase the issue off the agenda this year. Congressional Republicans and the White House are flirting with plans to overhaul the corporate tax system. But any perceived progress is expected to stall out despite a push from business groups to lower the 35 percent corporate tax rate, the highest among industrialized nations. Within the next few weeks — possibly by the end of February — the Obama administration is expected to unveil a "broad framework" on corporate tax reform and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said this week he "wants to bring down the rate to an average of our major competitors." While there is clearly a bipartisan desire to move forward on corporate reform, tax experts aren't expecting a major overhaul to happen this year although lawmakers and the administration are laying the groundwork with these early conversations. Read more ..

The 2012 Vote

The Hill

One year after it began, House Republicans are not letting up in their investigation of the $535 million loan guarantee to the failed solar firm Solyndra. Though the probe has not uncovered evidence of cronyism at the White House, the GOP sees an election-year advantage in pummeling President Obama on Solyndra, and hopes to turn it into a symbol of what they say is a failed administration. House Energy and Commerce Committee Republicans marked the Solyndra investigation’s one-year anniversary on Friday with a new catch-phrase they hope will follow the president on the campaign trail: “the Solyndra economy.” They argue that the Solyndra loan guarantee is emblematic of the president’s heavy-handed approach to job creation. Republicans say they are the champions of the “Keystone economy,” named for the Alberta-to-Texas oil pipeline that the GOP strongly supports. “Solyndra and Keystone represent what’s at stake this November,” Rep. Ann Marie Buerkle (R-N.Y.) said Friday during a press conference on Solyndra. “Two very different visions — I think Solyndra and Keystone typify them.” Read more ..

The Battle for Syria

VOA

The International Committee of the Red Cross says it is trying to broker a humanitarian cease-fire in Syria, as government tanks and troops mass around the opposition stronghold of Homs after bombarding the city for more than two weeks. ICRC chief spokeswoman Carla Haddad said Monday the Geneva-based agency has been in talks with Syrian authorities and rebels about ways of stopping hostilities to allow the delivery of urgently needed humanitarian aid to affected areas. The ICRC is the only international agency with aid workers in Syria and has been cooperating with the Syrian Arab Red Crescent. Syrian rights activists said President Bashar al-Assad's government deployed tanks and other reinforcements around Homs on Monday ahead of a possible ground assault. They said the latest government shelling killed at least nine people in the central city, a major hub of an 11-month uprising against Mr. Assad's autocratic rule. Syrian state news agency SANA said 12 security personnel were buried after being killed in fighting with rebels.

None of the casualty figures could be independently verified because Syria restricts the operations of foreign media. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Monday nations opposed to Assad's deadly crackdown on the uprising will demonstrate his increasing isolation at a Friends of Syria meeting in Tunisia later this week. Speaking on a visit to Mexico, she said the meeting will focus on what she called the "brave" Syrian people's need for "support and solidarity." Read more ..

Syria on Edge

VOA

A Chinese newspaper says Western support for Syrian opposition forces could trigger a civil war in the violence-stricken nation. The state-run People's Daily said in a commentary Monday that foreign military intervention will be needed if civil war erupts in Syria. The newspaper also said a draft U.N. Security Council resolution that would have endorsed an Arab League plan for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to step down would have led to more violence in Syria. China and Russia vetoed the Western- and Arab-backed resolution earlier this month. Another state-run Chinese newspaper, the Global Times, reported Monday that China favors Arab League efforts to solve the Syrian crisis. The paper also said China is urging Syria's government and opposition to halt violence and begin “inclusive” political dialogue.

Human rights activists say more than 6,000 people have died in nearly a year of upheaval in Syria, where opposition activists have been rallying against President Assad. On Sunday, Syrian security forces deployed in a tense Damascus neighborhood, blocking opposition activists from staging a second day of mass protests, as the government continued a nationwide crackdown on protest hubs. Read more ..

The 2012 Vote

The Hill

Gallup's daily tracking poll shows Rick Santorum continuing to gain momentum among national Republican voters, with the former senator now holding an 8 percentage point lead over Mitt Romney. Santorum earned the support of 36 percent of voters, up one percent from Saturday.

Romney fell by one percent to 28 percent. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (Ga.) and Rep. Ron Paul (Texas) held steady at 13 percent and 11 percent respectively.Mitt Romney did make up some ground in a hypothetical one-on-one matchup with President Obama, however; Gallup shows the pair now tied at 48 percent each. In the last iteration of the poll, Obama broke 50 percent for the first time, while Romney still earned the support of 48 percent of voters.

The president, meanwhile, looks well-poised if Newt Gingrich can muscle his way back into the Republican race. Obama would be the choice of 53 percent of voters in a hypothetical matchup with the former speaker, while Gingrich would only earn support from 41 percent of voters. That's a drop of seven percentage points for Gingrich, and a gain of three percent for the president. Gallup did not release a trial heat figure for a hypothetical Santorum-Obama matchup. Santorum has surged to the front of the GOP field after a trio of surprise wins in Colorado, Missouri, and Minnesota. In a positive sign for the former Pennsylvania senator, a string of controversial remarks - including comments from a major fundraiser joking about birth control, a remark that was interpreted as a challenge of President Obama's Christian values, and remarks decrying women being permitted to serve on the front lines of combat - seem to have done little to dent his popularity among the Republican electorate. Read more ..

South Korea on Edge

VOA

South Korea went ahead with an artillery drill Monday near a disputed maritime border despite an unusually explicit threat by North Korea to retaliate by shelling inhabited islands in the Yellow Sea. Officials in Seoul say the morning exercise was routine and included the firing of self-propelled howitzers and mortars. Attack helicopters also joined the exercise on the western frontier islands. A spokesman for South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff says no shots were fired towards the Northern Limit Line, which is the disputed maritime border. North Korea, the previous day, warned inhabitants of the five islands to evacuate to avoid its possible retaliatory shelling. And in a message, carried by state radio and the official news agency just hours before the South Korean exercise commenced, Pyongyang termed the drill “a clear declaration of war” against the North.

The North Korean announcer says if South Korea fires recklessly, then it “will not escape punishment thousands-fold more severe than the shelling of Yeonpyeong island.” North Korea, on November 23, 2010, in response to a South Korean military exercise, bombarded the island, killing four people. South Korean officials say residents of the five front-line islands were advised to take shelter in safe zones before its forces began the shelling exercise. The officials also say no reaction has been observed from the North's military, and there are no signs of any extraordinary troop movements. Read more ..

Iran's Nukes

RFE/RL

The Iranian Oil Ministry says Iran has stopped selling oil to British and French companies. Spokesman Ali Reza Nikzad Rahbar said in a statement on the ministry's website on February 19 that "oil sales to British and French companies have ceased," adding that Iran will sell its oil to "other customers." Iran has been threatening for weeks to stop exporting oil to Europe after the European Union said it would stop importing crude from Iran. The European Union last month imposed tough sanctions against Iran over Tehran's nuclear program which the West fears is aimed at building bombs. Iran denies this. The sanctions include a freeze on the country's central bank assets and a ban on oil imports set to begin on July 1. The 27-nation EU accounts for about 20 percent of Iran's oil exports.

There was no immediate reaction to Iran's decision from British or French officials on February 19. But the French AFP news agency said the decision was not expected to have a big impact. It says France last year bought only 3 percent of its oil -- 58,000 barrels a day -- from the Islamic republic, and Britain was believed to be no longer importing Iranian oil. However, other EU nations, including Italy, Spain, and Greece are bigger consumers of Iranian oil. Although those nations were not affected by Iran's announcement, they are included in the EU decision to stop buying Iranian oil as of July 1.Read more ..

The 2012 Vote

The Hill

Paul Babeu, an Arizona county sheriff and Republican congressional candidate, denied allegations from an ex-lover who said Babeu had threatened to deport him if he would not promise to keep their homosexual relationship secret. Babeu called the charges "blatantly false" but openly discussed his sexuality in a press conference Saturday held after a local paper reported the allegations. An outspoken critic of the Obama administration's Fast and Furious program and a surrogate for the Romney campaign, Babeu said he never threatened his former lover with deportation. But he acknowledged that there had been a relationship, and the fallout from it required his lawyer to intervene.

The Pinal County sheriff said the man with whom he had a relationship maintained the campaign's website and social media presence as a volunteer, but after their relationship deteriorated he began posting insulting messages on the website. It was at that point Babeu's lawyer contacted the man - who was not named by the sheriff - and demanded he stop posting to the campaign's website. But Babeu insisted he never threatened anyone with deportation - noting the man was not an illegal immigrant - and turned over the cease and desist letter his attorney sent. That letter makes no mention of deportation, although does insinuate that continued use of the sheriff's website could lead to "devastating consequences … personally and financially." "This idea of deportation was never and issue, I don't have the power to deport … there was no law enforcement action here," Babeu said. Read more ..

VOA

Iranian warships have passed through Egypt's Suez Canal and entered the Mediterranean Sea, in a move likely to be watched closely by Israel. Iran's navy commander Habibollah Sayyari was quoted by Iran's official news agency, IRNA, as saying that the mission was a show of might and a "message of peace." He did not specify how many Navy ships were involved or where they are headed, but news agencies quote Iranian and Egyptian sources as saying they could be going to Syria. Sayyari said the passage through the Suez Canal was only the second made by Iranian ships since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Two Iranian warships passed through the strategic waterway last February and docked in Syria, in a move Israel called a "provocation". Read more ..

Russia on Edge

RFE/RL

Russia has reportedly blocked a U.S. plan designed to help stem the flow of drugs from Afghanistan through Central Asia in a sign of Moscow's continued wariness about Washington's intentions in a region often thought of as "Russia's backyard." A delegation of U.S. officials led by Deputy Secretary of State William Burns and William Brownfield, the assistant secretary of state for international narcotics and law enforcement affairs, presented the plan at a February 16 meeting in Vienna of the Paris Pact countries, which works to counter trafficking in Afghan opiates.

Washington's proposed Central Asia Counternarcotics Initiative (CACI) would create task forces in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan which would coordinate with similar entities in Afghanistan and Russia. Each task force would be comprised of some 25 people from their country's drug control agency who would be mentored by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. The groups would share information, improve coordination on joint and cross-border operations, and build cases against traffickers. Afghanistan is the world’s primary source of opium, which fuels the heroin trade and funds extremist groups. The region's problem with drug addiction is enormous. Brownfield visited Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and Russia last spring to preview the initiative and this week, Washington was hoping to gain official backing for the plan in Vienna.